The incomparably lush, richly diverse paradise of Kauai has beckoned Hollywood as a preferred "tropical movie" location site since the era of silent films

The incomparably lush, richly diverse paradise of Kauai has beckoned
Hollywood as a preferred "tropical movie" location site
since the era of silent films.

Kauai's first taste of the movie business came in 1933, when the
legendary director Lois Weber brought the film 'White Heat"-a
romantic story of plantation life and forbidden love in old Hawaii-to
life on Kauai's west side.

More than six decades later, Kauai has served as an unforgettable
backdrop to more than 50 films, including "South Pacific,"
"Blue Hawaii," "Jurassic Park," "The
Lost World," "Outbreak," and Walt Disney Pictures'
upcoming live­action feature, "Mighty Joe Young."
Yet perhaps only Touchstone Pictures' "Six Days, Seven Nights"
shows Kauai so magnificently, revealing parts of this stunningly
majestic, dramatically exotic island never seen before in any
motion picture.

For nearly three months, location filming spanned the entire map
of incomparable Kauai-the oldest island of the Hawaiian archipelago.
Production continued on the beaches of Los Angeles in mid­autumn.
The film company completed approximately one month of soundstage
shooting in Los Angeles.

In 1995, noted producer Wallis Nicita brought writer Michael Browning's
spec script to producer Roger Birnbaum, who, in turn, bought it
for Caravan Pictures. "The way I choose a script is very
basic," producer Birnbaum says. "If I get goosebumps
and have to go home and tell my wife I just read something wonderful,
that's the criteria. When I read 'Six Days, Seven Nights' it was
funny and romantic. I just sparked to it."

Birnbaum promptly presented the project to international film
star Harrison Ford. "The reason I thought Harrison would
be perfect for the part is that he conveys all the qualities the
part required: wit, manliness and confidence. When he's on screen,
even though there's trouble around, you feel somehow safe because
he's there. That's a very rare quality. In the film, the main
characters are stranded on a desert island and we needed the type
of guy who no matter what happens, is going to make things okay.

The search for the "perfect director" to bring the film
to full­bodied life followed. Luckily, for all involved,
famed director Ivan Reitman was also smitten with the script-and
the opportunity to work with Harrison Ford.

Ford, however, had a concurrent commitment to film the presidential
thriller "Air Force One," and requested that he be permitted
to complete that assignment before taking on the romantic adventure
of Touchstone Pictures' "Six Days, Seven Nights." Details
worked out, and Ivan Reitman began working with screenwriter Michael
Browning to hone the script-deftly infusing it with the famed
'Reitman Touch.'

Casting the female lead of Robin Monroe, producer Birnbaum remembers
that director Reitman called him one day and said he wanted him
to come over and see Anne Heche who was returning for another
audition, this time to read with Harrison Ford. ''I had met Anne
years ago on an audition for another film of mine," Birnbaum
recalls. "At that time I had not heard of her, but I was
very taken with her audition and never forgot it. At this reading
with Harrison, Anne knocked us out. She was funny, she was real,
she's very beautiful, and coupled with the fact that she had an
immediate chemistry with Harrison, made us believers. When she
left